Startup Fraud, the Met Gala, Larry David, and All the Celebs are Getting Married
What I'm Reading, Watching, & Listening To This Week
Hello Darkness, my old friend!!!
It’s not exaaaaactly Fall weather here in NYC yet, but it IS rainy today so I’ll take it! I’m ready to do every basic autumn b*tch thing in the books — pies, soups, pining for England, butternut squash, When Harry Met Sally, apples, sad girl music, British Bake-Off, pumpkin stuff. [Confession, I was Yesterday Years Old when I learned that PSL means Pumpkin Spice Latte??? I feel like I should win points for not knowing that????]
I am ready to feel nostalgic as hell and I would love to hear YOUR go-to autumn activities. What music do you recommend to get your girl in the Fall Mood? What movies or shows do you rewatch when the weather turns crisp? What recipes should I try? Is this the year I FINALLY get into Gilmore Girls?? The opportunities are endless!
Give me your best autumny faves!!
Now, on to what’s on my mind this week.
In the News
A lot of celebs have gotten married lately. First, to be clear, this is definitively NOT a wedding blog. Yes I believe in love, yes I had a wedding, yes I love being invited to weddings provided I can wear a four-inch heel and drink from an open bar. [If you are having a “casual” wedding with no alcohol, what are you doing and why?? Please comment!] Ultimately, though, I find a lot of wedding culture quite cringe. HOW-E-VER. 2020 sucked and I found myself truly delighted to see pictures of beautiful weddings again.
Here are a few highlights with links to photos:
- Issa Rae married her longtime [v hot] boyfriend in France and looks like a fun normal person having a fun wedding while also being impossibly attractive.
- Lily Collins—aka Emily in Paris, aka daughter of Phil Collins, aka Life-Size Wood Nymph—got married to America’s-Mom-Mary-Steenburgen’s son (!?) at a Colorado venue that makes even the word “dusty” look expensive.
- Supermodel Jasmine Tookes got married to a Snapchat exec in the most Grace-Kelly-esque dress I have ever seen in a stunning cathedral in Ecuador! They are, presumably, very happy! [Also what is the deal with Snapchat bros marrying supermodels I hate it so much. Stay away from the Snapchat bros!]
- Also married in 2021: Uzo Aduba, Aubrey Plaza, Kristen Wiig, Hannah Gadsby, Nick Cage [fifth time’s the charm! she is 26!], Riz Ahmed, Ariana Grande, Elizabeth Olsen aka Scarlett Witch, Anna Faris, and Kate Middleton’s very weird owns-several-hunting-dogs brother James. Lots to celebrate!??
It appears, judging from the backlash, that we have finally identified the worst TV show idea ever! Usher, Priyanka Chopra, and *let me make sure I’m reading this right* Julianne Hough, were announced as hosts of a new show called “The Activist,” in which *checking notes again because this can’t be correct* contestants representing a “cause” compete against each other to win…uh…Best Cause? A popularity contest for good deeds! Nothing could go wrong here! Let me just check my history books but I think this is how England justified colonizing the entire world!
Larry David — personal icon for grumps everywhere — was seen at various star-studded events around New York City this week, emphatically plugging his ears. First, he plugged his ears at the U.S. Open. Then, he plugged his ears at New York Fashion Week. Then he went out to lunch with this blog’s number 1 boy and lifetime mascot, Timothée Chalamet!!! [Note for the reader, he did NOT plug his ears with Timothée!] This blog is now officially a charter member of “Larry Watch.” What will he do next!?
Did you see the cat at the Miami baseball game? This video is simultaneously a nail-biting thriller and a warm soft blanket. As a society, we can’t stop Covid but we CAN save cats.
Watching - LuLaRich on Amazon Prime
LuLaRich is the newest documentary in the “Startup That Flew Too Close to the Sun” genre. Others include the WeWork doc, the Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos doc, and the multiple docs about the Fyre Festival. Critic Alison Willmore calls it the “startup-freude” genre and I am adopting that.
LuLaRich is about the rise and fall of the multi-level marketing company LuLaRoe that you might recognize as the “Instagram leggings” or know someone from your high school who sells them.
And y’all, this documentary is WILD. I’ve watched a lot of cult documentaries and I can say with absolute honesty, this feels exactly the same as a cult documentary. A few highlights:
The company was run entirely by one Mormon family and in the family an adopted brother and sister ended up MARRIED? It’s legal and whatever but WHAT?!
Women at the top of the company were making bonus checks of $50,000 PER MONTH.
Katy Perry performed at one of their conferences?
The founder of the company started comparing himself to Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, and saying “How do you think we became masters of the globe?” Exactly what kind of leggings are we selling here!?
I’m making light of it, but it’s actually incredibly sad. So many women were promised this wonderful thing — a way to make some money and have your own thing while staying at home with your children — and were completely defrauded. It’s hard to know if the founders intended to do that or if it just got out of hand, but they ended up ruining people’s lives.
I don’t want to wax philosophical on this [lol yes I do], but I feel like there’s something uniquely American, in the best and worst ways, about this kind of endeavor. It’s the DNA of Silicon Valley, too, this cult-like, vocational mentality towards our work. It’s not enough to just provide a service or make some money — it has to serve a greater story, to be life-changing, world-changing, to have a mission. America was founded as a brave new experiment that would change the world. It did! And in many ways, our success relied on the strength of that story. [As someone who literally makes everything about saving the world, I too am guilty of this.]
Anyhoo, great documentary if you like watching things fall apart and feeling kind of sad about the world in general!
Listening - Bad Blood: The Final Chapter
If you thought you had safely navigated the depressing cult startup portion of today’s newsletter, NO SUCH LUCK.
The other big startup fraud story in the news right now is the trial of Elizabeth Holmes, who in 2014 was dubbed the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. Young, feminist, working women like me were THRILLED. [Spoiler: this doesn’t turn out well for us.] She had dropped out of college to start Theranos, a blood-testing company that promised to make lab tests easier and cheaper, using only a pinprick and a few drops of blood to do every type of blood test. People who are scared of needles like me were THRILLED. Spoiler: It didn’t work. And the company lied about it for years and harmed thousands of people.
In 2015, a journalist for The Wall Street Journal named John Carreyrou broke the story about their fraud. He then wrote a book expanding on his investigations, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.
Carreyrou returns with this podcast to cover Elizabeth Holmes’ trial. I’ve only listened to the first episode and it’s really well done but also feels a little misogynist? Like he basically accuses her of getting pregnant to try to win points with the jury?? [Although he apologizes for how that sounds and gives some context. Also Elizabeth Holmes did horrible things so maybe he’s just being honest.]
This is my personal version of True Crime because murders are too scary for me. I find corporate greed to be quite salacious enough! These stories make me really sad, but they’re so complex and fascinating.
[Note: If you want a quick-and-dirty summary of what’s going on with Theranos, you should try The Daily’s episode from Thursday: The United States vs. Elizabeth Holmes.]
Looking At - The Met Gala
You KNEW this was coming!! I guess we shall just continue with the theme of the Follies of Wealth!
Let me get this out of the way: Is the Met Gala a garishly ostentatious display of wealth, privilege, excess, and navel-gazing? YES! Does it celebrate an industry that, while it has employed lots of people and created lots of capital-C Culture, has also destroyed rainforests, abused laborers, and churned out debilitating beauty standards?? YES! Did I know literally nothing about the Met Gala’s existence until I moved to NYC in the Year of Our Lord 2013 and yet don’t feel like I missed out on a single damn thing for a fulfilled life up till then? ALSO YES!
THAT SAID—I love looking at pretty people in pretty-and/or-outrageous outfits, I love a common cultural moment we can all parse together, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Then we can go back to our daily good works that I’m sure we are doing unseen and unacknowledged, unlike the contestants on “The Activist”!
SO—The Co-Chairs this year were: singer/musician Billie Eilish, age 19; poet laureate who stole America’s heart at the inauguration Amanda Gorman, age 23; tennis star and mental health queen Naomi Osaka, age 23; and languid Victorian sex symbol and Larry David BFF Timothée Hal Chalamet, age 25.
They’re all Gen Z babies which caused a torrent of hand-wringing, existential dread, and “Beware the Insidious Children!” think pieces in the months leading up to the event. The co-chairs are basically figureheads who “help” with the guest list and overall aesthetic which I believe means in technical terms that they jump on calls with the actual event organizers and have patently wrong/bad opinions and the event people smile and nod and then ignore them completely. I assume they also do some sort of welcome speech but I, dear reader, was not invited so I don’t know.
The theme this year, which always mirrors the new Costume Institute Exhibition at the Met, was “American Independence.” [It was, perhaps appropriately, complete chaos.] Regardless of theme, I would personally define the fashion ASSIGNMENT of the night as DO TOO MUCH.
Here, in no particular order, are my Met Gala highlights:
Kim’s look. Was it a tribute to Kanye? A dig at Kanye? Could it just NOT BE ABOUT KANYE FOR ONCE?? An iconic moment overall though.
Rihanna looks super happy AND COZY with A$AP ROCKY and GOOD FOR THEM.
Buzzfeed did a great list of the meaning behind some of the outfits like Dan Levy’s tribute to AIDs activism and our beloved Gemma Chan’s tribute to Hollywood’s first Chinese-American star.
This is the least pro-woman thing I am going to say today but Megan Fox’s existence makes me feel like a sexless blob and I really hate it!! I know that’s MY PROBLEM but it’s still very stressful and yet even more stressful is the fact that she is dating another sexless blob, also known as Machine Gun Kelly! Sorry to him, I’m sure he is lovely and she finds him very sexy, but literally HOW!
There was a real trend at both the VMAs and the Met Gala to wear completely sheer dresses and both the backlash and the counter-backlash are exhausting. People slut-shame women they don’t even know. Then the women, who have every right to defend themselves, instead of just being like “keep your thoughts to yourself,” do all this virtue signaling about how “a body is just a body” or “I’m rejecting projections of what a woman should be.” [All of which sound like woke terminology spit out of an algorithm, as my friend Eliza pointed out.]
To the backlash: Let people wear what they want and if you don’t like it, don’t look at it!
To the counter-backlash: Okay calm down because your body just happens to conform EXACTLY to the patriarchy’s projections of what a woman should be. [As my friend Laura pointed out.] Nothing wrong with that, but we don’t need the virtue signaling probably.
Anyways, can everyone just calm the hell down and let a sexy dress be a sexy dress!?!? Sheesh.
Reading - On Fragile Waves
As someone who made reading novels my entire personality in high school, it is truly inexplicable how few novels I read as an adult.
But I made an exception for this one because one of my podcasts told me to, and so far it has not disappointed me.
On Fragile Waves, published earlier this year, tells the story of a young Afghan girl and her family’s journey to Australia as refugees. The author uses magical realism to illustrate how a child processes the brutalities of life as a refugee, and the cruelties of the journey and the new home where they land. Like the movie Room, it allows us to enter these hardships through the eyes of a child which helps soften the edge but also emphasizes the hardship. I haven’t finished but so far it has been absolutely beautiful, touching, funny, sweet, and heart-wrenching.
It’s also just incredibly timely, as we push to be better and kinder and more welcoming to the influx of Afghan refugees today.
Whoof, sorry if today’s topics were kind of heavy! That’s what Fall does to me, y’all! Don’t forget to drop your Autumn recommendations in the comments. :)
Startup Fraud, the Met Gala, Larry David, and All the Celebs are Getting Married
I watch HIMYM for the Fall feels. I used to watch Gilmore Girls, but then read a few articles on what a brat Rory is. It ruined it for me. Although, I’m realizing Ted is also full of himself too. The first few seasons of Girlmore Girls are fine for all the Fall feels but the. You start seeing green trees with cotton on them in the later seasons. That also ruined it for me.
I did watch Suits recently and it was gratifying to see people wearing coats and being cold.
My friend and I went and got all the apple things. My sister in Boston bragged about her fresh apple cider donuts from the orchard. It seems ACD are not a thing down south and I’m pretty heartbroken over it.
Definitely trying Only Murders!
Fall feels: You've Got Mail, on repeat.